NYT Says Bill Cosby Gave National Enquirer An Interview In Return For Their Silence

BILL

In court documents that have been unsealed in recent months, the New York Times revealed that Bill Cosby did an exclusive interview with the National Enquirer in 2005 in exchange for the tabloid killing a story about one of his accusers.

Here’s where the Cosby sexual abuse allegation timeline was at this point in 2005. Andrea Constand from the Temple University basketball program had accused Cosby of drugging and raping her the year before. In his deposition in that case, Cosby admitted to giving the National Enquirer the exclusive so that they wouldn’t wouldn’t run the story from another accuser Beth Ferrier, a former model who said he did the same thing to her in the 80s. He also admitted that if the Enquirer ran Ferrier’s story, it would bolster Andrea Constand’s accusations against him. And he didn’t want to see that happen.

The National Enquirer ran the pro-Cosby spun interview called “Bill Cosby Ends His Silence: My Story!”. In it, Cosby talked about being furious about the allegations and said, “Sometimes you try to help people and it backfires on you, and then they try to take advantage of you.” He added, “I am not going to give in to people who try to exploit me because of my celebrity status”. Cosby also thanked the National Enquirer in the article for offering a reward for any information on who murdered his son Ennis 8 years earlier.

Andrea Constand not only went on to sue Cosby, but the Enquirer too for defamation. Those two suits were combined and Constand received an out of court settlement in 2006.

 

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